


tú vísir mær (heimin í morgunroða)

by meritmut



Series: i loved you well, when we were young [20]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Illusions, Major Character Injury, Mildly graphic description of said injury, Pining, Sifki Week, Sifki Week 2017, pre-canon/pre-relationship/pre-everything but Hopeless Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-15
Updated: 2017-07-15
Packaged: 2018-12-02 14:09:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11511018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meritmut/pseuds/meritmut
Summary: (tú vísir mær heimin í morgunroða / opnar eygu míni ; you show me the world in the morning / you open my eyes)I've never needed eyes to see you, she'd told him.





	tú vísir mær (heimin í morgunroða)

**Author's Note:**

> for [Sifki Week 2017](https://sifkiweek2017.tumblr.com/), for the 'battlefield' theme

It’s purely by chance that it happens. Blind, luckless, Norns-be-damned chance. It was no one’s fault: they’re warriors, things like this _happen_. Scars are their currency. One day, she’ll wear this one with pride.

He'll tell himself that, after.

But there are five of them, and one serpent—one giant, fanged, vicious, _ugly_ serpent, granted, but a serpent, singular, nonetheless—and slaying it should not have been the disaster it proved to be.

The beast lets them get close, lets them surround it and get a few good strikes in and almost convince themselves the rumours that led them on this hunt were exaggerated, and then it rears back and begins spraying the cave in which they’ve cornered it with gouts of greenish-grey bile that take only a few moments contact with the skin to start _burning._

It’s by chance that Fandral is the first to fall, the dragon’s acidic spit eating through his furs in seconds to bring his arms up in angry welts and prove just enough of a distraction for him to miss the jaws that come scything down around his thigh.

They manage to extricate him from the worm’s teeth, eventually, Volstagg charging in to offer a distraction of his own while Sif hauls their wounded comrade to safety, and Loki almost allows himself to think they’ll put the monster down without any further mishaps before the wretched creature vomits up another great fount of burning bile straight at the retreating warriors.

It’s by chance, yet again, that this time it misses Fandral entirely.

Sif goes to her knees with an agonised cry, her hands pressed to her face, and Loki’s blade is embedded to its hilt in the beast’s eye before he’s aware of it leaving his hand.

He’s halfway across the cave in an instant, sprinting towards the pair while on the other side of the cave Volstagg bellows a challenge to draw the worm’s attention, Hogun putting his own body between the screeching beast and the injured pair as Loki skids to the ground beside them.

It's not until he gets a good look at Sif's face that he realises the extent of the damage done, and a curse slips from his lips before he can stop it.

The serpent’s vomit had struck her square across the brow, the skin around her eyes already beginning to blister and burn as the foul stuff eats into her face, sloughing away in places and leaving a bloodied mess behind. The raw, weeping flesh isn't the worst of it, though—her eyes are tightly-shut, a gruesome smear of blood and plasma leaking from beneath her eyelids and what remains of her lashes.

The corner of her mouth twitches at his exclamation. “That bad?” she croaks, only to flinch in pain when the air hits her face—“oh, hells,  _Loki.”_ One hand comes up to grip his wrist so hard he swears he can feel the bones creak in protest but he lets her do it; lets her ground herself in him even as he fights off the sick dismay burrowing its way through his stomach to see the stuff weeping from her eyes.

“I have you,” he mutters, doing a poor job of keeping it from his voice. “Come on.”

Bringing his free arm up around her shoulders he helps her to her feet and, carefully, the two of them stagger from the fray, trusting in their friends to guard their backs and get Fandral out in one piece as Loki helps Sif to safer ground.

“Point me in the right direction,” she grumbles stubbornly, “I can still slay that thing.”

“I have no doubt,” Loki tightens his grip around her in case she actually decides to turn around and charge back into the fray, not putting it past her for a second, “but let our friends share in the glory, today. I need you here.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, I—” he feigns a groan, “I seem to have taken a wound in my leg, and you're all that's keeping me upright.”

“Ha,” Sif’s elbow digs into his side, her voice laboured with pain, “you lie better than that, my prince.”

But she lets him guide her out of the serpent’s burrow all the same, and once they've reached the mouth to put her back against the wall and inspect the damage to her face.

In the light, her wounds fill him with nausea all over again.

"Now…" So, _so_ gently, Loki slides his hand under her chin and tilts her face toward the weak sun, already knowing that there’s nothing he can do for her here, “let me see your eyes.”

_Come on. Scowl at me like you always do. Show me the knives you keep behind those lashes._

Slowly, painfully, Sif's eyelids part.

For a moment, they just stare at each other.

Or, he thinks she stares. He isn't certain what those clouded eyes can see.

Then she grins.

“You look terrible,” she says, sounding about as wrecked as she looks.

“I've no doubt of that either,” Loki feels his own lips stretch into a faint smile, not that there’s much humour in it, and suddenly there’s no putting off the dreaded question. “How's your sight?”

Her smile twists into something sour. Flecks of the worm’s bile must have hit her there, he realises: her mouth is blistered in places, her lower lip cracking as she glowers at him and asks acerbically, “how does it look?”

It isn't so much an invitation to lie to her as a dare. “Bad,” he admits, moving his hand slowly across her field of vision. “Can you see at all?” He covers her eyes with his palm for a moment, then watches her scarred pupils carefully as the light returns to them, looking—hoping—for a reaction.

“In a manner of speaking,” Sif frowns, then winces as the movement stretches the ruined skin over her brow. “Shadows, mostly. How bad is it?”

Her voice drops to a murmur at the last.

Loki clears his throat. “In a manner of speaking?”

“Smart mouth.”

“I—” and yet, it fails him now. “You still have one eyebrow, if that makes you feel better.”

Sif grimaces. “No, I'm not sure it does.” Her hand finds his wrist again, squeezing a little more gently. “It's not good, then?”

Loki’s too-long silence is answer enough.

“I'll get you home,” he says eventually, resting his free hand over hers as he glances back toward the cave. Fandral had been hurt but the others were holding their own; he’s loath to leave Sif alone in such a vulnerable place but he _longs_ to skin that creature alive and besides—even blind and bleeding she can defend herself from just about anything that might come by out here. The danger is _in_ the cave. She’ll be alright for a few minutes, even if it stings her pride a little to be kept from the fight. “All of us. Just—trust me, for a little while longer.”

“Do I have a choice?” Still, there's humour in her voice, a grace Loki isn't sure he could muster if his life depended on it, and she’s already reaching for her glaive to lean on when he reluctantly pulls himself away from her side.

 

-

 

Her wounds aren't deep, but that doesn't make them any less grave, and in the end Eir can do no more than clean away the blood and bile with her gentle hands, apply salve and dressings and say _what we can, we shall do,_ while Sif herself fidgets in pain and Loki loiters out of the way, having become something of a shadow to his friend while Eir works and then a steadfast hand to hold and nearly crush as Sif listens to the healer and lets that hollow assurance wash over her in silence.

Gradually, the understanding sinks into his chest that this might not be such a reparable injury. That Sif might not open her eyes tomorrow, or a week from now, and turn a look of such scorn or amusement on him as she used to; that the ruin of her sight might be beyond the skill of any in Asgard to heal.

She might be without it  _forever_.

He sits beside her in silence as she does her level best to grind his fingers to dust, and starts to think of means beyond Eir's knowledge by which sight might be restored.

(He thinks of the knotted twist of flesh that sits behind his father’s eye-patch, and knows in his heart that if there had been a way, the wily old king would've found it by now.)

 

-

 

She lets him walk with her as far as her door, her hand still tight around his wrist the closest thing to a guide she'll accept. On the threshold she forces a grin, thumps him gamely on the shoulder and tasks him with finding out how their fellows are faring. She'll be fine, she says, could find her way around her rooms in the dark anyway, she has no need of a shepherd here. But—

“My thanks,” one of her eyes is hidden by the dressing, but the other seeks where she guesses—accurately—Loki’s own to be. “For before, too. You didn’t even trip me _once_.”

“Oh, I was tempted,” he smirks, lets his gaze rove over her for a moment while she can’t see him looking. It feels wrong that she should be the one making jokes, as if _he’s_ the one who needs reassuring, but he observes the way her hand trembles as she reaches for the door and realises it might be more to do with keeping herself together in front of him, where her pride won’t let her break.

Not for the first time Loki wonders what accident in her creation blessed Sif with bones of Uru-steel—or if it’s in her blood the molten starmetal flows. It’s shaken her, to lose her sight, but he should’ve known a little thing like that wouldn’t diminish her in the slightest.

“Ass,” Sif shakes her head as she bids him goodnight and shoulders her door open, footsteps as sure and straight as though she strode into battle as she disappears into the darkness within.

 

-

 

Later, he finds her on the terrace that wraps around her rooms, alone in the quiet. She sits upon the low wall, her back to the pillar with one knee bent to her chest, and were it not for the tilt of her chin at the sound of his approach Loki would’ve thought her sleeping.

“Come sit with me, Loki,” she calls out before he can announce himself, or sneak up on her, he hadn't quite decided.

He should probably be glad she can’t see him smiling. “How did you know?”

“I've never needed eyes to see you.” There's a strange softness in her voice, something quiet and tired he hasn't heard in a long time. Not since…

He lets the thought drop, uncomfortable with where it leads.

In the dark, her injuries aren't so bad. Eir's salves have begun their work, soothing the burns around her eyes and knitting the flesh back together so smoothly it mightn’t even scar (which Sif will bemoan to no end, without doubt). If it weren't for the lack of eyebrow or lashes and the uneven haze of her one visible iris, the dressing over the right side of her forehead and eye could almost be an affectation.

He remembers older wounds, how she’d grin as she told their stories, delighting Volstagg’s young ones with tales of beasts slain and glory won.

This new stillness unsettles.

“You are missed,” he says lightly, coming up beside her to lean against the wall and look out over Asgard. Summer is at its height and despite the late hour the sky remains a deep, lapis blue, while far below the city glimmers in the dusk, streets and rivers and gardens alike glowing with the light of a thousand golden lanterns. Music drifts up to them from somewhere, borne up on the breeze. Loki can just make out enough to pick up the melody with his fingers and tap it out against the stone.

“My apologies,” Sif replies, sounding weary. Her face is turned toward the city too, so far away it seems another world. He remembers what she’d said about shadows and wonders what it is she sees there now. “I lost track of the hour.”

Loki makes a noncommittal sound. “I thought as much. I _said_ as much, when your friends accused you of avoiding them.” He keeps his voice carefully blank, looking anywhere but at her as Sif sits up slightly. Her own voice, when she speaks, is degrees colder.

“Have I not reason, if I were?”

Looking over at her then, he takes in the displeased slant of her mouth, the tension in her jaw. The raw pink skin around her eye, and the directionless annoyance in it.

“Maybe,” he says quietly, “but I wouldn’t have you hide from us. Not when there might be something we could do to—”

“What?” she interrupts bitterly. “To _help?_ Eir could not, Loki. _Give it time,_ she said. And I will. But—do not expect me to find it easy, just yet. Give _me_ time.”

“...to hearten you,” he finishes, his voice too gentle for either of them to like much. “Fandral is nursing the most _stunning_ broken nose I’ve ever seen, and when I left Volstagg was declaring how he’d paint you such a picture of his black eyes you’d almost be able to see them yourself. I fail to see how that wouldn’t cheer anyone.” He also fails to keep the sarcasm from his tone, but it lifts her anyway, knowing as she does how little time he has for the warriors’ bluster. Her gaze wavers on his face and there’s no sight there but there _is_ recognition, and defiance, and an awareness of exactly what it is he’s doing.

She surrenders, just this once, her head leaning back against the pillar.

“I can hear everything, like this,” she says, looking out over the world again. “The music, the wind…voices, even. I can hear Asgard, though I cannot see her.”

Her hand comes up, held out in invitation for him to perch on the wall beside her.

“Paint me a picture, Loki. Tell me what you see.”

He pulls himself up onto the wall beside her, his back to the city and his side brushing her bent legs. “I’m no artist,” he demurs. Sif makes a face at him.

“Just—let me see again,” she sighs, “just for a little while. Don’t let the last thing I saw with these eyes be a worm throwing up on me.” She sounds exhausted. She’s retreating, somewhere, going inside where he can’t find her, trapped by the darkness that surrounds her.

“Give me an illusion.”

Slowly, his hand unsteady, Loki reaches out to cradle her jaw and let his thumb rest against her temple. She leans into his touch, her eyes falling closed. “Show me something. Anything.”

Her skin is warm against his, flushed with an inner fire that despite everything burns undimmed.

_Anything?_

“Alright,” he breathes.

He shows her Asgard.

He shows her what he sees, first. He gives her the city spread below them, gives her sights to match the sounds that reach them on the light wind; the lanterns that twinkle up from the streets, gold and amber and butter-yellow amid the deepening midsummer twilight, then the city’s waterways, smooth and barely rippling, and beyond them the ocean that laps at the world’s edge; that white-tossed sea that holds back the brink of night, lit with all the colours of the cosmos. He gives her the observatory, winking gold on the shore, and the image of her brother there standing guard over them all, his own eyes brimming over with starlight.

Then he reaches further: he gives her the sky, the stars overhead, gives her the unclouded heavens and fills them with everything his own eyes can see and more. Every constellation he can name, every branch and twig and root of the World Tree in whose arms Asgard resides, whole galaxies alight above their heads. He gives her the horizon, and the universe beyond.

He holds the illusion in her mind for as long as he can, pressing image after image between them to keep that wondrous look on her face for as long as she’ll let him.

“They will heal,” he says softly, running his thumb over her brow.

There’s a universe of another kind in her eyes. “What if they don’t?” she asks, keenly, recklessly vulnerable in this moment when it’s just the two of them, even the stars blotted out for her. “What if I _am_ blind forever?”

 _Then I will be your eyes,_ the promise hangs on the tip of his tongue.

“I’m sure you could still knock the feet from under me, and half the Einherjar too,” he says instead, drawing back to rest his hands on her knees. “You’ll simply have to forge yourself a new legend. Sif the Sightless, the boldest of the bold, will stand to be outdone by none—even the Allfather. He only gave one eye, after all.”

“Aye, for a king’s wisdom,” she cracks a wry smile, “I’m not sure there’s anything _wise_ about getting blinded by worm bile.”

“Ah, I wasn’t done,” he taps her knee, “she gave both of hers to prove her courage, not that anyone doubted it, and went charging into peril to drag her fool of a compatriot out of it. Truly, a hero to be reckoned with.”

Sif snorts, “you’ll be reckoning with my foot up your arse if you don’t watch it.”

“I’ll watch it for both of us, then, will I?”

“You _shit_.” Her laughter mingles with his, and if her eyes shine a little brighter then he chalks it up to the starlight and makes no comment, drumming his fingers over her knees in time to the melody still drifting up from some courtyard far below.

“But,” he continues, his tone growing sombre even as his smirk widens, “if you find yourself bored of the dark, I can help.” The amusement in his voice has suspicion already creeping over Sif’s face—she hadn’t lied, with what she’d said before. He leans back slightly in readiness. “Just, you know, if you find yourself missing the sight of my brother  _too_ much.”

Sure enough, her foot comes flying up to kick him in the side. Loki catches it in one hand, grinning.

“Your bedside manner leaves much to be desired.”

He rolls his eyes and resumes goading her. “I give it a _day_ before you’re back in the yard stoving heads in.”

“Mm, and yours first.”

“Then who would give you the stars back?” he gives her foot a squeeze, filling her mind with the Branches again and relishing the sound of her gasp. “I can give you any sight you like, if you but name it.”

Except for one, he thinks, taking in the naked warmth of her face tilted into the light of conjured galaxies, open and unafraid because she is alone in her darkness, and forgets she isn’t outside of it. He couldn’t show her this sight.

He couldn’t show her how he only keeps his fingers wrapped around her foot because if he loosened his grip she’d feel them shaking.

He couldn’t show her how beautiful she is, even now, scarred and burned, to him. She’d think him ridiculous.

She’d never _speak_ to him again.

 _I’ve never needed eyes to see you,_ she’d told him.

He chews his lip, watching her watch the stars he's made her, and feels his heart give a twist.

He’s rather afraid of what she’ll see without them.

**Author's Note:**

> 'worm' as in 'wingless dragon' not, like...the thing from _tremors_
> 
> title/lyric from 'petti fyri petti' by eivør


End file.
